A forthcoming biography on President Obama is making headlines, with new details about the president smoking marijuana with his teenage friends in Hawaii.

David Maraniss' book, Barack Obama: The Story, describes Obama as a marijuana enthusiast: "When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted 'Intercepted!' and took an extra hit," Maraniss writes. Maraniss also describes Obama's technique of "roof hits" while hot-boxing cars. "When the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling," he writes. Obama has been less than shy about his drug use in the past, writing about the topic in Dreams from My Father, "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it," he writes in the memoir.

While Obama's term began with great promise for drug policy reformers, in the past two years it has been difficult to distin*guish Obama's drug policies from those of his White House predecessors. Although President Obama has acknowledged that legalization is "an entirely legitimate topic for debate" -- the first time a sitting president has made such a statement -- his administra*tion has made a string of increasingly disappointing moves over the last year. Half of all U.S. drug arrests are for marijuana -- more than 850,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana in 2010 alone, 88 percent for mere possession.

Barack Obama won a lot of hearts and minds some years ago when he talked so openly and frankly about his youthful marijuana use. That contrasted refreshingly with Bill Clinton's hemming and hawing about not having inhaled, much less George Bush's refusal to even acknowledge what old friends revealed about his marijuana use.

But the president has been losing lots of hearts and minds, especially those of young voters, with his striking silence on marijuana issues since he became president -- apart from providing lame excuses for the federal government's aggressive undermining of state medical marijuana laws.

Most disappointing is his failure to say a word as president about the fact that half of all drug arrests each year are for nothing more than possessing a small amount of marijuana, which is something Barack Obama did lots of in his younger days, or to offer any critical comments about the stunning racial disproportionality in marijuana arrests around the country.

Roughly twice as many people are arrested for marijuana possession now as were arrested in the early 1980s, even though the number of people consuming marijuana is no greater now than then. If police had been as keen on making marijuana arrests back then, it's quite possible that a young man named Barry Obama would have landed up with a criminal record -- and even more likely that he would not have his current job.

With 50 percent of Americans -- and 57 percent of Democrats -- now in favor of legalizing marijuana use, according to Gallup's most recent poll, President Obama needs to come clean once again about marijuana -- but this time he needs to speak not of his own youthful use but rather of the harmful consequences of today's punitive marijuana policies for young Americans today.

__________________It's only after we've lost everything that we are free to do anything.

David Maraniss' book, Barack Obama: The Story, describes Obama as a marijuana enthusiast: "When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted 'Intercepted!' and took an extra hit,"

As Bill Maher said last night, that is the complete opposite type of behavior you would expect out of a socialist.

I still think if Romney is down and out in the polls a month before the election he would be smart to adopt drug reform.

I'm assuming that at some point you guys have covered the medical advantages, paper production advantages, and the way it would crumble a huge area of the organized (and street) crime complex. Not to mention the impact it will have on innocent blacks being framed by the police, and pop culture glorifying something illegal, pulling kids into a rough lifestyle.

I don't even like smoking, but it seems way beyond obvious to me that keeping it illegal is doing a helluva lot more harm than it's doing good.

I am concerned that it isn't moving fast enough. It's been up all year, and only has 25, 000 signatures. 3 months to get 75, 000 signatures isn't a lot of time considering the pace that its been going. The problem is NO ONE knows about this.

I'm in my 3rd year of University. I don't think I know a single person over here who DOESN'T smoke marijuana. In the city of Manchester, you can smell marijuana almost every single day, being smoked somewhere whenever you're just walking around.

There are millions in the UK who'd sign this petition, if only they knew about it.

I am concerned that it isn't moving fast enough. It's been up all year, and only has 25, 000 signatures. 3 months to get 75, 000 signatures isn't a lot of time considering the pace that its been going. The problem is NO ONE knows about this.

I'm in my 3rd year of University. I don't think I know a single person over here who DOESN'T smoke marijuana. In the city of Manchester, you can smell marijuana almost every single day, being smoked somewhere whenever you're just walking around.

There are millions in the UK who'd sign this petition, if only they knew about it.

There must be a way to get the petition to go 'viral'.

There's alot of social networks that make it easier to spread a cause than ever. But alot of tokers are in the closet and don't want to expose themselves as a possible weed users to family, friends and co-workers. This fear hurts the movement politically.

Thankfully, efforts to roll back access to marijuana in The Netherlands have been stopped.

Before it collapsed in April, the most conservative government to rule Holland since WWII was determined to discriminate against non-Dutch residents and deny them access to the nation’s coffeeshops, but also to require legal Dutch residents who wanted to imbibe to obtain a "weed pass" to enter coffeeshops legally.

The law has already gone into effect in the border towns. The bigger interior cities, including Amsterdam, were supposed to comply with the law as of January 1, 2013.

In the short run everything is in limbo, as elections won't be held until September. But few people in Amsterdam expect the laws to take effect here, and many think that the laws affecting the border towns will be reversed as a more liberal (in the American sense) government takes place of the far right elements the nation has been saddled with since 2010.

And thank goodness for this return to sensibility.

First, in the months since the border towns have been enforcing the new laws, there has been a four-fold increase in the amount of criminality related to marijuana buying. Not that the activity is any different from before, but the police have had to squander limited resources enforcing a rule that most police departments were opposed to.

Moreover, a previous, but not quite as conservative government decided to ban magic mushrooms. Afterwards, consumption hadn't changed in any way, but more arrests were made, and expensively for a state that's looking desperately to cut its budget.

Worse, banning foreigners from the coffeeshops (which itself is of questionable legal status, since the EU rules prohibit member nations from discriminating against non-native EU nations - although this does Americans no good), would cost the nation dearly in terms of tourism. Every fall, thousands descend on Amsterdam for the "Cannabis Cup", which brings in many millions of euros, which in recession bound Holland is a very good thing.

And then there's this: Holland has seen something America should love to have: a declining prison population. So much that we've been renting out jail space to Belgium, providing yet more income But the conservative’s drug laws threatened to undo all that.

Finally, there’s the myth of the "gateway drug”. When I was a younger lad, Amsterdam used to have a terrible heroin problem. But over the last few decades, even as heroin has become a bigger problem elsewhere, it has largely disappeared from Dutch culture. Sure there are exceptions, but the availability of safe, legal, and often potent strains of marijuana have given hard core drug users a safer alternative, with society being a major beneficiary.

This shouldn't even be a debate honestly. The only problems with legalization arose from its prohibition in the first place. This never should have happened. It seems like people are finally coming to their senses, now its time for the politicians.. Especially the idiot right wingers who are preventing this. And the greedy bastards profitting from this ridiculous law.

Well, when you talk to people that are "smaller government" in polls etc.....they are usually "pro state's rights" so that isn't really surprising.....

Still doesn't change the fact if you want Government out of your business(whether it be federal or states) that something like giving people the choice to do what they want with marijuana should be a given they pro for legalizing it.

I have no problem if somebody said they want to shrink certain aspects of Government, that is their opinion but don't use a rally cry of "We want less Big Government" when it only suits your agenda, it makes your argument look weak basically. I was almost laughing at the debates when Bachmann would constantly use the "Less Big Government" slogan in one phrase then piss all over gay marriage, abortion or legalizing weed the next(even if you go by the let the states decide idea, you should want those issues out of federal governments hands if you are truly for less big government)

How about the we want less Regulation crowd as well? Why do they want Big Federal Government to regulate the marijuana industry. It's my belief alot of older Republicans won't give up on legalization of weed because it admits that Ronald Reagan's War On Drugs was a complete failure.

I'm one of the less government people, I think legalizing it right off the bat will be a disaster.....IMO, you decriminalize it first, and go from there. Way too many questions that need to be answered before fully legalizing it.

I'm one of the less government people, I think legalizing it right off the bat will be a disaster.....IMO, you decriminalize it first, and go from there. Way too many questions that need to be answered before fully legalizing it.

I would rate smoking and drinking(alcohol) worse for you them smoking a joint(also more addictive). Not that I think either of those things should be made illegal but why are they legal when marijuana isn't? You probably could add refined sugar and caffine to addictive substances that are worse for you then marijuana.

America's marijuana policy is basically at the hands of one head of the the Federal Bureau of Narcotics(Harry Anslinger) who wanted a cause to fight for after prohibition failed. They basically created a bunch of lies and used peoples fears of Mexicans and Blacks who were the people most associated with smoking it, to go after it. Ironically going after a "sub culture thing" had the effect of turning marijuana "sexy" and creating generations of marijuana smokers and increased Americans by percentages use of it.

As it stands now probably the biggest support of keeping weed legal is the Private Prison Complex who makes a killing off all the people jailed for heaven forbid choosing to smoke a joint. I guess this is job creating at it's finest since it means they have to hire tones of security guards(many times union backed ones who also have a stake in the weed being illegal sadly so it goes to both sides of the spectrum who doesn't want it legalized). If giving people in a so called free country(you know those tea baggers love their liberties and freedoms) the choice to do something that is rather harmless(or at least less harmless then alcohol or cigarettes) is not enough reason to legalize it, then the fact it will save taxpayers tons of cash should be a driving force for the let's stop wasting money crowd.

Believe me SV Fan, your logical argument has been made over and over again for since the 70's. They are fully aware that alcohol is far more harmful, that it would cut justice system cost and increase tax revenue, that millions could benefit from the medical properties, that the plant has a thousand industrial uses, and a great deal of Americans are unfairly targeted because they enjoy it. They know marijuana is decriminalized in the Netherlands and hard drug use and marijuana use among teens has decreased and the society continues to flourish.

But they don't care. Marijuana legalization threatens the status quo-police state financially, politically and culturally.

For that reason they won't even consider legalizing the plant despite the countless reasons to do so.

I would rate smoking and drinking(alcohol) worse for you them smoking a joint(also more addictive). Not that I think either of those things should be made illegal but why are they legal when marijuana isn't? You probably could add refined sugar and caffine to addictive substances that are worse for you then marijuana.

America's marijuana policy is basically at the hands of one head of the the Federal Bureau of Narcotics(Harry Anslinger) who wanted a cause to fight for after prohibition failed. They basically created a bunch of lies and used peoples fears of Mexicans and Blacks who were the people most associated with smoking it, to go after it. Ironically going after a "sub culture thing" had the effect of turning marijuana "sexy" and creating generations of marijuana smokers and increased Americans by percentages use of it.

As it stands now probably the biggest support of keeping weed legal is the Private Prison Complex who makes a killing off all the people jailed for heaven forbid choosing to smoke a joint. I guess this is job creating at it's finest since it means they have to hire tones of security guards(many times union backed ones who also have a stake in the weed being illegal sadly so it goes to both sides of the spectrum who doesn't want it legalized). If giving people in a so called free country(you know those tea baggers love their liberties and freedoms) the choice to do something that is rather harmless(or at least less harmless then alcohol or cigarettes) is not enough reason to legalize it, then the fact it will save taxpayers tons of cash should be a driving force for the let's stop wasting money crowd.

The health issues are not what I'm talking about.....what I'm talking about are the other legal ramifications of legalizing marijuana...there are more issues with marijuana than there are with alcohol, as far as driving under the influence. Marijuana stays in your system longer...NOT as a problem with your driving, but if you are stopped, and it is because of weird driving, (and lets be real, some drive bad under the influence of nothing...) but they smoked some weed 2 weeks ago...the legal ramifications are still there and yet the weed had nothing to do with their bad driving. That is just a small example. We really need to look at the BIG PICTURE before just "legalizing it" and decriminalizing it first gives us the chance to look at that big picture, but stop spending millions on these people in jail, which is where they shouldn't be...

The Netherlands showed decriminalization can work on a smaller national level.

You're not going to get a wider study and documentation of the possible ramifications and benefits than that.

But like I said, the neo cons will never even consider it. There are already countless reason to reform drug laws and they ignore them every time.

It goes back to Nixon who created a commission to study the marijuana hoping to increase the momentum for the drug war. The commission came back basically saying it was dumb to treat cannabis like harder drugs. Nixon completely trivialized the study , ignored the scientific facts and went forward with his Drug War agenda which continues today.

You can notice when somebody is stoned and driving because they are driving like less then 20 miles per hour. lol

LOL, this is true....I just think there are a few more issues that will come with marijuana than did with alcohol. I remember a little girl in my class that the drug dog tracked to her back pack. She had taken it to a concert the week before, but the smell I guess was still in it. The child has never smoked weed in her life, and probably never will, but her back pack absorbed the odor. She almost had a heart attack, it was traumatizing for her even though the officer was very sweet about it, and simply let her tell her what happened....and that was it. But it was traumatizing for her...lol

Marijuana just stays in the system for sooooooo long, that we really need to take it slow. IF we ever get to the idea of decriminalizing it, which I think is a far easier task than legalizing it, mainly because cost of prison time will bring us to decriminalizing it whether the far right religious fight it or not. $$$$$$ speaks louder than they do. As Jeb Bush said yesterday, it does seem that the far right want us to become a theocracy, and he just doesn't see this country ever allowing that to happen. If they want to become a viable voice in politics they have to move away from that philosophy.

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How much money does this country waste on the war on drugs? Allow people to grow marijuana in the US all of a sudden drug smugglers on the boarder becomes much less of a problem

Well, I certainly do not want other drugs legalized....I do fall more towards the Libertarian mind set, but not that far....I've seen what other drugs can do to people....and now this bath salt crap is bat **** crazy stuff....BUT, I do know that we spend far too much money and space on people who had some weed on them and got caught, and here in Texas it could have been their 3rd time, so we now have to take care of them for the rest of their lives in prison. Not cool.....I would rather them be out smoking weed on the weekends and working during the week, paying taxes, and taking care of themselves...I DO NOT, HOWEVER, want some meth addict out on the street, or hear of one of my students dieing from free basing cocaine because their tolerance level suddenly dropped, which happens with cocaine. But, them smoking some weed out on their porch....not a big deal to me, just so its not next to me where I can smell it, the stuff makes me want to puke....icky smell...lol

1. Gary Johnson I believe is for drug reform, feels war on drugs has failed, but I believe he is only for weed being legal.

2. I am addicted to caffeine. Hell, I get those sugar highs from it. Love my heart racing, love it going fast. Guess what? My choice to put that drug in my body. It's my body, not yours you sick and twisted govt. Yeah, that's a cheap shot at the GOP/Republican and democratic parties. They answer to the banks, wall street, and Hollywood. It's not a secret. They take the money and let them slide. I find it sickening Obama is having these...dinners donation drives. Sickening. Of course if that is how the game is played, I don't see a problem if 3rd party guys do that. Some Libertarians crying cause Gary took FEC matching funds. Um, he needs the 100K to pay off debt and for his campaign. Don't be silly.

Where was I...I forget.

Ah oh, drug war. The only drug besides weed...I can see coccaine being discrimalized...people need to learn to take responsiblity. However, I honestly only see Weed being discrimalized or legal in my lifetime. It's the easiest and safest one.

I'm one of the less government people, I think legalizing it right off the bat will be a disaster.....IMO, you decriminalize it first, and go from there. Way too many questions that need to be answered before fully legalizing it.